Hello out their in Decware forum land. I have been a regular poster over at Audio Circle for some time and been lurking here for a bit. I have been intrigued by the loyal Decware following and have recently changed up my two channel system to try the SET thing on for size.

I have purchased a "previously owned" Decware SE84CS EX mod, serial number 166 on Agon. I will be pairing this with a Eastern Electric Minimax preamp, at least initially. Sources include a Nottingham Interspace turntable and APL modified Pioneer 563A.

I am looking for recommendations on speakers to marry with the Decware SE84CS EX mod and welcome your recommendations. I am considering Ed Schilling's Hornshoppe horns, but would welcome any other suggestions from the Decware faithful.

The tendency for many smaller high efficiency speakers is to sound lean. If you're going for a purist approach you ideally want a speaker that has a solid frequency balance and good weight so that it sounds fine by itself AND is efficient. That way a subwoofer remains optional vs. required and that's important. All of our Decware speakers were designed with this in mind, and any of them are excellent with our SET amps.

The EX mod was developed for 8 to 16 ohm speakers. My favorite speaker on an EX modded amp is the HDT's.

I've gotten a few pair of HDT's into a hi-end circle in New York that are causing quite a stir... Replacing VR5-HSE's (a 20,000.00 speaker) and some of the new quad electrostats. The friends of these new HDT owners can't wrap their head around the possibly that a $1700 pair of speakers could sound better than what they've grown used to as being the best, so the owners have had to resort to blind listening tests with them to prove their point.

My Decware amp arrived yesterday. I will be hooking it up today to my 90db 8 ohm bookshelf speakers for a listen. I decided to purchase a pair of Horn Shoppe horns from Ed to pair with the amplifier. These should be arriving in a week or two.